


LUNCH DATE

by rogueimperator



Series: AU Oneshots [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Based Loosely Off a Tumblr Post, Developing Relationship, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Fluff, Friends With Benefits, Reylo - Freeform, Secret Relationship, Sickfic, Texting, but this one was in the works for a while, is couch sharing a thing?, so it's fine, yet another sick fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-16
Updated: 2020-08-16
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:07:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25925608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rogueimperator/pseuds/rogueimperator
Summary: In which Ben and Rey have a date scheduled, but a pesky case of bronchitis threatens to stand in the way.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Series: AU Oneshots [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1542052
Comments: 2
Kudos: 42





	LUNCH DATE

> **_Ben: So what do you want for lunch tomorrow?_ **
> 
> **_Rey: Corner? I've been meaning to try it for ages and yet I've never been_ **

Ben looked at his phone, tried to decide if she would let him pay this time. It had been four weeks since that night at the library, and every following Thursday they’d gone out for lunch between her noon and three thirty classes. Often, they would end up back her place, her roommates mysteriously gone so that they didn’t have to be quiet or necessarily wear clothes. 

He checked his bank account, then went back to their text chain. 

> **_B: Sounds good. But I’m driving this time. I don’t like being cramped up in the Hot Wheel._ **
> 
> **_R: Lololololol ok_ **

“Rey is typing…” flashed again at the bottom of his screen. 

> **_R: I just wish this cough-wheezing thing I’ve got will go away, it’s getting very irritating._ **
> 
> **_B: Uh oh. Feeling ok?_ **
> 
> **_R:I think so? If i’m not improved by tomorrow I’m going to the health office for some cold medicine._ **
> 
> **_B: I hope it improves too._ **
> 
> **_R: LMAO Im sure you do_**

The next day, she texted him at eight am. 

> **_R: So i just left the health center. Have “acute viral bronchitis” and a high fever. Definitely not going to class_ **🙄🙄🙄
> 
> **_B: do you need anything? You should definitely stay home if you’re sick._ **
> 
> **_R: i don’t think so?? I have gatorade and kleenex already, i guess I should head out and get some nyquil at some point._ **
> 
> **_B: Rey. Stay at home. I’ll be by about twelve?_ **
> 
> **_R: Ben wtf. You’d get my sickness_ **
> 
> **_B: Can’t stop me, I’ll see you soon._ **

**

Rey was curled up on the couch watching _Planet Earth_ when there was a knock at her door. She looked at her phone— it was 12:07, and she’d missed a text from Ben twenty minutes ago where he’d said he was on the way. She sighed. The man was insistent on keeping their date _despite_ her infirmity, and she supposed she might as well get up and answer the door. 

He knocked again. Rey looked out the living room window— his black Impreza parked at the far end of the driveway, the man himself peering just into the door’s transom window. She shrouded the blanket around her and lurched to her feet— her head throbbed and she realized hazily that she hadn’t showered yet. 

Rey turned the deadbolt and cracked the door open. 

“Hi,” she croaked. 

“Hey, there, Typhoid Mary. Can I come in?” His brow creased as he looked her over. 

“I guess, yeah.” Rey yawned and opened the door further. Ben stepped through the doorway, gently kicking it closed with his foot before moving past her into the narrow kitchen. 

“You got me stuff?” Rey hovered near the kitchen table as he unloaded the two brown paper grocery bags he’d had tucked into each arm. 

“Yep.” He reached in and removed a large deli carton filled with chicken soup, followed by two cardboard boxes that gave off the distinct aroma of grilled sandwiches. 

She drifted closer. “You went to Corner?” 

He nodded, emptying the other bag. Ritz crackers, daytime _and_ nighttime cold medicine, the good Kleenex with the lotion added to it, and a cardboard box of lemon ginseng green tea with an elephant on the label. 

“Oh wow,” she breathed. "Ben, you didn’t have to…” She was cut off by a deep, hacking cough, tucking her head into the elbow of her ratty grey hoodie. 

“Shh, shh, sh, go sit back down.” He turned her by the shoulders and gently pushed her back in the direction of the living room. 

She frowned, squirming away. “Well you’re the one who insisted he was going to come see me even though I told him I was, like, super sick.” She yawned. 

“Rey, I mean it.” He closed the space between them and kissed the top of her head. “Go get comfortable.” 

“Now you’re really going to get my sickness…” She grumbled, shuffling back in the direction of the soft, soft couch and David Attenborough’s calm narration of the annual wildebeest migration.

After a few minutes Ben came into the living room with dishes in both hands— a bowl of the chicken soup, still piping hot, and half a grilled sandwich, along with some crackers. She sat up, arms outstretched to take the bowl from him. She frowned when she thought about what she must look like. 

“Now you can’t stop me from paying for lunch,” He sat down with her on the far side of the couch his own sandwich and a bowl of the soup balanced on his left hand. 

“Don’t sit with me, you’ll get sick,” Rey mumbled. 

“Rey, sweetheart.” He rearranged her ankles till her feet were resting on his lap. “We had a lunch date.” 

The word _sweetheart_ struck her. Sure, they’d slept together a few times a week for the last couple months, but, did that mean…? She slurped down a spoonful of the soup and told herself she was overthinking. He was just doing something nice for her, the way she would for Finn or Rose or maybe even Poe. 

Still… she had to admit the attention felt nice. Always felt nice, if she was being completely honest. She almost always came first, and she couldn’t think of the last man she’d slept with who’d eaten her out so frequently. Plus, he listened to her without interrupting or trying to fix her problems, only offering advice when she asked for it. She had to admit, he was something of a rare specimen. Hell, maybe it did mean something that he’d chosen to spend his afternoon with her when she was a red, snotty, barely-washed mess.

She held the bowl to her mouth and sipped as she contemplated. The soup was really good. They’d talked about going to Corner a few times: it was a funky little deli just out of walking distance from campus, complete with local art and collectibles lining the walls. She somehow hadn’t eaten there despite living in Hanna City for the last two and a half years. The broth was rich and slightly spicy, and the chicken was still really juicy. 

The sandwich was a grilled cheese with bacon and tomato. Probably not what she should eat with a fever and a cough but again… it was really good. Her share was gone before she realized it. Rey leaned over as far as she could to set the empty dishes on the coffee table; Ben reached one trunklike arm in front of her to brace her from falling. 

Rey rolled back onto the couch and picked up her blanket from where it had fallen onto the floor. She tucked it around her chest as he stood up, moving her legs carefully, and carried the dishes into the kitchen. He was gone a few minutes after that, and returned with a steaming hot mug of the green tea he’d brought with a slice of lemon floating on top. 

“You do realize this is my house and my kitchen, right?” She inhaled deeply as she wrapped her hands around the warm mug. “How did you know this is my favorite mug?” It was so big it was almost a bowl with a little handle, and on one side had a cactus in a pot with the words DON’T BE A PRICK circling it in black, scrolling cursive. 

He shrugged, and resumed his place on the couch. He smiled a little, dimples crinkling at the corners of his mouth. “It was the only one with a cactus on it. Lucky guess.” 

She drank the tea and they sat there in silence— she watching more nature shows and he scrolling through his phone for a while before pulling out a slim paperback volume with the words _Medieval Catholic Theology Fall 2017_ and opening it about halfway. His free hand rubbed small circles around her calf, and soon, she was falling into a warm, dreamless void. 

**

Rey woke sometime later to a soft rumbling coming from somewhere in the vicinity of her feet. She squinted as she craned her neck to find the source of the rumble. Ben had fallen asleep too, and curled up next to him was Poe’s enormous orange and white cat BB, wedged in an awkward ball between Ben and the arm of the sofa. Ben’s massive hand was resting on the cat’s back, the other still draped protectively over her ankle, and his book was leaned against his chest. 

She patted around her for her phone before spying it on the floor just under the coffee table. 

A text from Finn front and center on her screen. 

> **_F: How are you feeling, Peanut? Be home soon._ **
> 
> **_R: A bit better. Just woke up from a nap._ **

She tapped out the words and looked over her phone at Ben’s still face. She thought, not for the first time, that she’d have to tell Finn and Poe about Ben eventually, but now… She sighed, and chewed on her lip in thought. 

It would make it real. Take their relationship from the sphere of just the two of them into the other aspects of her life. Would they like Ben? Did she care if they liked Ben? Would they want to hang out with him the way they hung out with her? 

It wasn’t, she decided, something she wanted to deal with right now. Let whatever unspoken thing they have stay that way before the demands and expectations of other people shattered the illusion. 

She sat up, scooting her feet out from under him. He stirred and woke with a small confused grunt, rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand. BB also woke, and gave Ben an irate squinting glare before hopping down with a loud _meep_.

“Hi, sweetheart.” Ben leaned in and kissed her gently. She frowned and pulled back, not meeting his eyes.  
  


“My roommates are going to be home soon,” She said, still not looking at him. “I think you need to go.” 

He brushed a stray lock of hair out of her face and his mouth turned down at the corners. “And? It’s not like I’m balls-deep in you right now, we’re just sitting on the couch.”  
  


“I know, I know.” Rey scrubbed her face with her hands and kept her eyes fixed on the couch cushions. “Please? We can talk later and I’ll meet you at the library on Friday night after work like we’ve done before and--” she broke off into a deep, hacking couch, spitting a gob of mucus into a tissue. 

He sighed, patting her ankle and standing up. "You don't want your roommates to find out about us, do you?' 

She scrunched her nose and glared at him. "Stop reading my mind, Solo." 

"You're lucky you're cute." He stood up, looming over her in her nest of blankets and pillows on the couch. "I'll text you later. Keep the rest of the food." 

Rey curled further into her couch-blanket-nest and watched silently as he slipped his shoes back on, picked up his keys, tossed his jacket over his arm… 

"I'll be at the library for most of the rest of the day." He crouched next to her and kissed her twice, gently, once on her too-clammy forehead and once on her lips. "Keep taking your medicine. I'll check in on you later." 

He stood, crossed the living room, opened the door, and was gone. 

Rey sighed, clicking the TV back on. Some years-old Discovery Channel special about sea snakes was playing and she didn't realize she'd drifted back to sleep until the front door opened again, and Finn crossed the living room to crouch near her. 

“Don’t come too close,” She grumbled. “I am highly contagious apparently. I had to call off work too.” 

“Aw, Rey. You look like you got hit by a truck.” Finn shook his head. “I’ll be in my room if you need me.” 

“Thanks,” she mumbled, tucking the covers around her face again. 

**

Four days later, she got a text from Ben at quarter six in the morning. 

> **_B: So, I woke up with a cough this morning. I suppose you were right about being contagious._ **

Rey shook her head, biting back the urge to laugh. 

> **_R: I told you so_ ** **😘**
> 
> **_B: I have no regrets. Your blanket-nest was, dare I say, adorable._ **

She did laugh this time. 

> **_R: You’ll get over it in no time, and I’m sure you can’t wait to get back in my bed._ **
> 
> **_B: Actually, think I want you in MY bed next time._ **

Her cheeks flushed. 

> **_😉 R: Just as soon as you’re well, that’s a promise_ **

  
  
  
  
  


  
  



End file.
